Rudi cries sour grapes...

Rudi Koertzen says: “Don’t blame umpires as the players are not honest”!

Now this is an outrageous statement coming from an umpire in elite panel of ICC. What is player’s behaviour got to do with an umpire’s decision???

It is like a judge saying the next day after delivering a wrong judgment ”Don’t blame me for the judgment, you were rude in the courtroom”!!!

Hello?

Until the time the game rises above the pampered egos of umpires and hands over decision making to the technology in order to give justice to the hard work put in by the players, we will have such baseless arguments.

Down with high-headed umpires!

Bangla Create History!

A country which was just born when the Windies were ruling world cricket, took pains, insult and derogatory treatment in world cricket for years, decades only to rise and create history by beating the same Windies in test cricket and that too in West Indies !!! Lovely!
Bangla tigers, Jai Ho!

Pakistan - A Mystery!

Pakistan team, Oh Pakistan team – what art thou?

In Test no. 1, you almost defeated SL and in the second test in innings 1 , you were all out for 90! If that was a blip, you followed it up with an awesome fightback going to 285 for 1 and then unexplicably catapulting to 320 all out!!! I don’t think there is any other team in the whole world which is capable of such contrasting display in just a couple of days!
And to think of it, for god’s sake it was (and is) a batting pitch! Kumar Sangakkara’s batting average on this ground is a near 90! And then SL got the winning total of 172 within 32 overs!!!

That makes Nuwan Kulasekara a superman, doesn’t it? He was simply unplayable yesterday and Herath. Tushara bowled very well too. Pakistan all out for 90 by Sri Lanka and then again last 9 wickets in 35 runs in the second innings without Muralitharan in the team!

Add to that the enigma of a reverse sweep reversing fortunes of a match, a nation and history!!!

I think Pakistan teams will always remain the most enigmatic, charismatic and yet mystifying teams that has ever played world cricket.

Unlikely batting heroes for England!

Move over, Kevin Pieterson, Cook, Strauss and Collingwood. The new English batting heroes are here: James Anderson and Monty Panesar!

Well done, boys. Very very well done indeed! It was a great contest between the bat and the ball and made for a riveting show.

I think that instead of using North, Ponting should have thrown Hauritz along with Hilfenhaus who was clearly one of the best bowlers of the innings for Aussies, at both Monty and Anderson. But what’s happened has happened and the record books have recorded a fighting draw for England at Cardiff.

Paul Collingwood yet again stood like a rock for a long time, I think for a long time now; he has been the Man Friday of English Cricket.

This brings me to yet another important thought on test cricket. Most of the teams have great batsmen in them; very few have world class bowlers. And test matches are not won on runs, they are won on wickets. There is no rocket science here, simple fact: A team that manages 20 wickets in 5 days wins the match. So, it is the teams that have the best bowlers who will be champions and stay champions.

That is why you had WI dominating in the 80’s and then Australians in the new millennium.

Coming back to this game, I think it was an overall a super-credible fighting performance from the Brits on Day 5 at Cardiff to snatch a draw from the jaws of defeat.
Thank you to both teams for such exhilarating Test Cricket!

I'm Back...

All of you millions of fans out there, I am still alive and not gone the MJ way yet!
So rejoice!
OK, lot of stuff has been hapenning in the cricket world and I have followed it diligently; only could not find time to blog about the same.
So here goes:
T20 World Cup was as entertaining as it always is and threw some new heroes, thanks to IPL.
The Ashes are here as a super relief from the Mad Mad World of T20 (which is a great world too, but nothing beats Test Cricket). Bad boy Ricky hit a mangnificient 150 to close in on Sachin's records and more importantly to put the match beyond England. English attack looks depleted (as usual?)
In other news, SL have beaten Pakistan in a keen home contest that had fans like me sitting up and taking notice as Pakistan almost managed the unthinkable - beating SL in SL!!!
India manged to beat WI 2-1 in a not so just result, but was great to watch the Carribeans in action after a long time.

Keep watching this space for more analysis and criticisms and appreciations.

I have also updated my other blog linked to the right of your screen. Go read.

Terrorist attack on cricket

The horrible cowardly attack on SL cricketers was the worst day in the life of glorious game, worse than any other.
The Lankan cricketers took it on their chin saying that they are used to bombs and bullets flying around in their country.
If the terrorists truly want to fight the SL cricketers, let them throw a bowler to stop a marauding Samarweera who notched twin double centuries or throw the gun away and hold a bat against the wily Murali.
Terrorists are cowards, pityful cowards.
There is no cause that can justify attack on fellow humans and especially sportsmen.
I think Pakistan is in a state where things have got horribly out of control and no international team will visit them for any cricket. One feels sad for the immensly talented Pakistani cricketers, though and hopes that they re-locate or at least they get to visit the other nations to play for their nation or club side.
The terrorsits have fled for now, and the game of Cricket moves on....

Empire striking back?

Are the Aussies bouncing back in the Cricketing world with the Test victories over SA? (looks like the 2nd test also going Aussie way)
Certainly looks that way with the way Mitchell Johnson of all the members took it away from Proteas with the batting in 1st innings and bowling throughout the series.
Beating the Proteas in their home ground is not easy - but Aussies are doing it just the way they did it over so many years to everyone else.
Ponting's Aussies are hitting back with revenge.
And it's a pretty sight for a cricket lover.